History provides context. Back on the 23rd May 1988, when I saw the Six O'Clock News being disrupted by protestors and watched the same incident subsequently repeated as part of the TV Hell theme night, I probably found it quite amusing, seeing these newsreaders trying to do their job as potential mayhem was happening off camera. As a proud BBC fan I no doubt applauded the professionalism of Sue Lawley in continuing to present the programme even as she gave a nervous side eye to the woman who had chained herself to the news desk with her co-presenter Nick Witchell sat on another.
Now I understand of course the reason for the protest. Section 28 or Clause 28 was a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. Much like similar laws being passed in the United States right now, its broad, unfocused nature was an existential threat to the LGBT community of the time, as support and counselling groups were forced to close and schools could no longer teach children about a whole group in society, with numerous Conservative MPs using homophobic language to justify their actions. It became law on the 24th May, the day after the news protest.
Which means and as this BBC Stories piece demonstrates those protestors were incredibly courageous. As Booan Temple describes, broadcasters simply didn't understand the impact this was going to have on LGBT people and so their only recourse seemed to be to try and get on television themselves and nationally. It worked. The invasion itself became a news story on the Nine O'Clock News and although the coverage in the newspapers afterwards was predictably homophobic and it ultimately didn't change how the vote went, it did at least give some comfort to any gays and especially lesbians watching that someone understood what they were going through and were willing to fight for them.
Section 28
"Section 28 of the Local Government Act passed into law on May 24th 1988. But Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government had under-estimated our communities’ determination to resist this legislation at every possible opportunity."
[Gay in the 80s]
"It's exactly 17 years since the anti-gay legislation was finally repealed by parliament in 2003."
[Attitude]
"Section 28 of the Local Government Bill prohibits the "promotion of homosexuality". Concerned about its effect upon the arts, and fearing for its implications on a wider scale, actor Ian McKellen questions the purpose and logic of the Bill. Newspaper editor Peregrine Worsthorne argues for the Bill in this forthright discussion."
[BBC Archive]
"Kilroy (1986-2004), BBC One’s weekday discussion programme, covered the topic of the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in schools in the wake of the Section 28."
Featuring Sir Ian McKellen.
[BBC Clips][BBC Programme Index]
Archive
"A Schools Television series presented by Carol Vorderman. This encouraged schools to experiment in various specific ways."
[BBC Computer Literacy Project Archive]
"A series of ten programmes about computers in society, with Fred Harris."
[BBC Computer Literacy Project Archive]
"Description of Dunmow Flitch Trials, where couples compete for a side of bacon by showing themselves to be the most happily married. Features extracts from Trial Ceremony, including verdict and sentence, and interviews with judges, candidates, counsel, and jurors. This was originally broadcast on BBC Essex on 12 June 1988."
[Essex Record Office]
"Keith Floyd continues his culinary trek with a visit to East Anglia. He looks forward to dinner and the prospect of Norfolk Dumplings, he makes potted shrimps and tastes brown shrimps. He then cooks scallops with chef Robert Harrison."
[BBC Rewind]
"BBC Radio 4 series in which Michael Charlton traces the emergence of Zimbabwe as an independent country in 1979."
[Imperial War Museum][BBC Programme Index]
"Nelson Mandela Concert at Wembley Stadium Celebrating His 70th Birthday: Harry Belafonte, Jonathan Butler, Tracy Chapman, Joe Crocker, Jazz."
[Reuters][BBC Programme Index]
[Tate][BBC Programme Index]
"Richard Taylor was serving as a military police subaltern in Korea. Near to his tent they were interrogating prisoners - and sometimes they tortured them. That was the start of a lifelong concern about torture."
[Richard Taylor][BBC Programme Index]
Places
BBC film crew shooting an episode of 'Campion' at the Old Brewery, Foxearth, Essex, 28th August 1988
[Bridgeman Images]
Programmes
"Phillip Schofield, the first Broom Cupboard inhabitant, presents the programme that allows young viewers to give their opinions on TV shows."
[BBC Archive]
Three part history of the youth strand.
[Off The Telly]
"Representatives of Telegael, a joint RTÉ-Udras venture for dubbing TV programmes into Irish, visit the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Wales in Cardiff, to explore possibilities for co-productions."
[RTE]
"In this episode of The Reunion, Sue MacGregor gathers together the founding members of Comic Relief [...] On the back of the Red Nose idea came the first ever Red Nose Day TV extravaganza in 1988 - an event which would bring together comedy and charity like never before on live national TV."
"The BBC’s head of comedy said it would only work if there was a sofa. We said spaceships don’t have sofas – and he said it won’t work then."
[The Guardian]
"Sometimes, if I put on my magenta-tinted spectacles, I think that the most fun I ever had with Red Dwarf was in 1994. That was the very first time I watched the series, and indeed the very first time the show had been repeated from the beginning at all. So I could blithely enjoy the show without being troubled by what other people thought of it… or specifically, what the writers thought of it."
[Dirty Feed]
"Neighbours star Stefan Dennis, who plays Paul Robinson, visits Belfast. Reporter: Paul Clark."
[BBC Rewind]
"In this extract, Richard Attree develops music for the BBC schools radio series Popalong, using a state-of-the-art computer system, while Peter Howell puts the hum into hummingbirds for Wildlife On One: Birds of the Sun God."
[BBC Archive]
This BBC audience reaction report was one of the first nails in Doctor Who's coffin in the late eighties…
[Gen of Deek]
"The alcoholic and Godless wife of a vicar, a curtain-twitching meddler who finds happiness in prison and a timid suburban housewife who falls in love with a murderer. Three of 12 seemingly remarkable yet ordinary characters who made up Alan Bennett's two series of ground-breaking TV monologues."[BBC Sounds]
Politics
"Broadcast journalists from Belfast travel to London today to join protest at House of Commons against home secretary's Sinn Fein broadcasting ban; while in Belfast journalists and senior editors held news conference to highlight campaign for review of measures. Reporter: Iain Webster."
[BBC Rewind]
No comments:
Post a Comment